Re: [Visualpython-users] Python 2.5

[Eric A. <Ay...@ma...>]

I (or my department if I can find a way to get a receipt for the  
software "purchase") will contribute $50 towards a bounty for a Mac  
OSX non-fink non-X11 "universal" standard-installer-package version  
of vpython. Something I could pass out to students on CD's with  
"double-click here" install instructions... and I know Bruce just  
well enough that "To Bruce Sherwood's satisfaction" is sufficient for  
me, too.

At present, I use Parallels Desktop running Ubuntu to demo vpython on  
this Mac in classes, rather than corrupt my system with fink...

-ea

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Eric Ayars
Assistant Professor of Physics
California State University, Chico
ay...@ma...


On Oct 6, 2006, at 2:15 PM, Scott David Daniels wrote:

> Bruce Sherwood wrote:
>> There are two rather different routes toward supporting Visual on  
>> Python
>> 2.5. The better route is to work with Visual 4, since that's what  
>> we all
>> want to use, given its greatly enhanced graphics capabilities.  
>> However,
>> if changing to Numpy doesn't require much effort (I have no idea), it
>> would be good to put that into Visual 3, because there are some  
>> serious
>> problems with Visual 4, the most worrisome being the following
>> (extracted from summary in Recent Developments section of  
>> vpython.org):
>>
>>     1) Mouse interactions on Windows, including  
>> scene.mouse.getclick(),
>>     are associated with crashes. A tight loop without a rate()  
>> statement
>>     may crash or be hard to kill.
>>
>>     2) Some animations run in a jerky manner due to slow rendering of
>>     the scene. The program gas.py is an example. The issue may be  
>> that
>>     the detail level on spheres needs to be decreased.
>>
>>     3) Graphing (from visual.graph import *) works well for many  
>> simple
>>     uses, but if the axes must be continually adjusted it can be very
>>     slow. If you know the extent of your variables and can specify  
>> xmax
>>     and ymax for the graph, the graphing is very fast.
>>
>> I feel competent to deal with 3) and probably with 2) if it is just a
>> matter of reducing the level of detail. But I don't feel competent to
>> track down and fix problem 1), which might well involve tricky
>> multithread issues. (For the graphing issue it is necessary to do  
>> some
>> work analogous to some coding I've already experimented with,  
>> having to
>> do with supporting different scale factors in x and y.)
>>
>> And there's the long-standing issue of finding someone to write a Mac
>> version of the platform-specific files in Visual that handle  
>> creating a
>> window and handling mouse and keyset events, so that there could be a
>> Mac-native version of VPython, not dependent on running X11 and  
>> fink and
>> difficult opaque installs. Hugh Fisher in Australia indicated  
>> recently
>> that he might be able to get free to do this in the near future.
>>
>> If we could get over the hump of having a usable Visual 4 for Windows
>> and Mac (as far as I know it works fine on Linux), perhaps we would
>> attract some new developers who could contribute, because Visual 4  
>> comes
>> much closer to offering "professional-grade" graphics likely to  
>> interest
>> people in the graphics area.
>
> You might consider offering a bounty for those projects (A: mouse
> interaction, B: run on OS/X, C: move 4 to Numpy, D: move 3 to Numpy).
> You might even solicit contributions to the bounty from your users.
> Slightly tricky parts would be definitions of "acceptably solved",
> though Bruce Sherwood's name has been associated with the project
> for long enough that "to his satisfaction" may be an adequate
> definition.  I'd be interested in working on the problem, but need
> to keep a modicum of cash coming in, and you might well find someone
> with the right mix of ability and cheap time to work on it.
>
> -- Scott David Daniels
> Sco...@Ac...
>
>
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